Shattered Dreams
by MusicBelle101
Summary: Sarah Blake must come to terms with the news of a death too painful to accept with the help of a friend. In doing so her life is set on a course that will change her forever. Prerequisite for "Your Tragic Fairy Tale"  Sam Winchester/Sarah Blake Pairing


**Hey ya'll sorry for the story delay! So! Here's the deal kiddies, this here is a prerequisite Ficlet** **for an upcoming brand new Sam Winchester and Sarah Blake** **Multi-Chapter fic, "Your Tragic Fairy Tale" that will have a brand new start and whole new storyline. This means my work on 'Behind Closed Doors'** **will be more of a fluff and porn relax time writing, but i think you guys will be happy with the new story I have in the works! ;D**

**So without further ado I present you with: 'Shattered Dreams'**

**All characters belong to Supernatural and the CW except for my brain babies Patrick and Ian O'Malley  
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**Song(s): When You're Gone by Avril Lavigne (this is mainly for the first half) and Haunted by Taylor Swift**

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><p>"Blake Estates Sales, Sarah Blake speaking, how may I help you?" Sarah made the appropriate 'Mhms' and 'ahhs' as she scribbled her notes, half listening to the auction house she'd spent the last day and a half trying to reach. It was barely nearing noon and she'd already been involved in three overseas conference calls and negotiations. Not to mention setting up for an auction later that evening, she was running on coffee and fumes and it wouldn't be long before she flat lined. She'd slipped her heels off around three hours before, and as she leaned back in her leather office chair she tucked her bare feet under herself, cradling the phone against her shoulder as she penned in the dates and figures she needed. As her hand moved across the paper the light caught the silver charm bracelet she wore causing her lips to quirk in a secret smile.<p>

"Sarah." Daniel's voice seemed overly loud to Sarah's ears as she was brought out of her brief daydreaming. She jerked a little and frowned when it caused a line on her paper, she held up a finger to tell her dad she'd need a minute as she finished the call. Her dark brow quirked up a little in curiosity as Daniel settled himself, with an almost gleeful expression, into one of her leather chairs across from her desk. Sarah was half tempted to squirm in her chair from the intensity of her father's look, she was good at her job, but it always made her nervous when he stared at her like she was one stutter away from losing a deal.

"Mr. Bane, thank you for your time and your help. I'll get in touch by tomorrow evening with the final figures." Sarah smiled as she made one last note; it was her 'thank you for your help' smile that had they been face to face, Daniel was confident, she would have had the man fumbling over himself to please her. After she hung up the phone she lifted her finger one more time before her father could start talking as she made one last adjustment to her file, shifting over to her computer. "What's going on, Dad? Another family file on the slate?"

"Not this time. However, this is a cause for celebration, I'm getting us champagne." Daniel was up and out of the chair as he talked, grabbing the bottle out of the little company fridge that he insisted be in every office for certain meetings. Sarah watched a little bemused as she finished her typing, leaning back in her chair as the bottle was opened and her father poured the drink into two flutes bringing one to her. She shook her head a little as she took the crystal flute from his hand, holding it delicately as she watched him settle back into his chair. "A toast. To getting rid of nuisances and the world being a better place."

Sarah frowned slightly as her father lifted his drink up before taking a drink and trying to encourage her to do the same. She shook her head a little, "I'm lost here, dad, mind speaking English?"

"It's quite simple, my dear." Daniel chuckled richly as he took another drink with a satisfied smirk on his lips. He set the flute down on the edge of Sarah's desk before leaning forward in his chair with the air of a man ready to divulge the secrets of life. "Surely you remember those two hoodlums that snuck into our auction a few years ago? They were the ones who posed as art dealers and resulted in some of our pieces mysteriously vanishing over night. You remember them, the brothers; one looked like a Sasquatch the other some kind of Abercrombie model with an agenda."

"Yes, I remember them." Sarah's voice had dropped to just above a whisper, she didn't know why but it felt like a hand was squeezing her heart and she couldn't breathe correctly. Her father's behavior didn't make any sense, usually when he referred back to Sam and Dean it was in cursing undertones because he believed they were responsible for the damage done to a few pieces he'd been trying to sell. When in fact she'd destroyed those pieces herself after checking them out, she wasn't willing to repeat the painting disaster and risk anymore lives.

"Well, you won't have to worry about them harassing you ever again." Daniel obviously mistook Sarah's breathless tone for fear, not that he could blame her, the men had been wild and who knew what they might have done if they'd come back. Seeing Sarah's blank, somewhat incomprehensive look he leaned across the desk to cover one of her hands with his own squeezing in a rare soothing gesture, "It seems they were wrapped up in more than just a little illegal activity. They were apprehended by the FBI a day ago, but in some kind of horrible mechanical accident they were killed in a helicopter crash when they were being moved. They're gone Sarah, and they're never going to come back and bother us."

"That's…that's great." Sarah forced a smile, or what she hoped was a smile on her face. To be honest she couldn't really tell what her features were doing anymore, her entire body felt numb and cold. She assumed she'd made the right facial expression to appease her father's hatred of the pair of brothers because he left with only a few more words, which thankfully didn't require Sarah to actually say anything. She waited until her office door had closed and her father's footsteps faded before she quickly woke up her computer, searching the most recent headlines to confirm what her father had said, and make her worst fears come to life. As she scanned article after article talking about the helicopter crash containing the Winchesters she felt cold tears slide down her cheeks, and it wasn't until one fell on her hand that she realized she was the one crying. For every article she got pulled in further, reading report after report of the infamous Winchester brothers and how criminal the world believed them. And by the time she'd found a video of the scene of the accident, Sarah felt a sickening hollow in the pit of her stomach that that was how her heroes had died. With the world believing they were scum and law breakers, that no one would ever understand how much safer she'd felt knowing they were out there somewhere, hiding in the shadows.

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><p>Sarah's footsteps rang eerily through the empty cathedral, and despite the below freezing temperatures both inside and out, she couldn't feel a thing. It had been less than five hours since she'd heard the news, less than a handful of hours before she'd made her decision. With dry eyes and surprisingly steady hands she opened the door into Father O'Malley's office at the back of the large room, grateful she'd called and only a little guilty at making the older gentleman wake up at such a late hour. Patrick O'Malley had been something of a staple in her life growing up; he was always there, from her first communion, to her mother's passing. She'd played games of tag with his son in this very church as a child, and conducted business with him as she'd gotten older. He'd been a long time family friend, and her shoulder to cry on during the hard times, but it hadn't been until Sam, that she put the pieces together. The signs had always been there of course, the odd symbol, the bizarre phrase, but she'd never had a reason to put it all together before; her beloved clergyman was a Hunter.<p>

Patrick stood from his desk as Sarah walked in; he was an elder gentleman nearing his early seventies, his once red hair now a distinguished gray that brushed back from a smooth forehead. His deep green eyes had long ago stopped performing at their best abilities, and were aided now by a pair of square wire rimmed glasses that perched precariously on his nose at an almost always crooked angle. He'd led a hard life, well no hunter's life was easy, but despite that his face was lined with laugh lines, it was a kind face, one where you wanted to open up and talk. It was, as Sarah had once described, a grandfather's face. Seeing Sarah now, he couldn't help wondering what had caused the sudden call. Assuming it had something to do with a paranormal or supernatural artifact, as she passed such things on to himself and his son to take care of, he'd called Ian in just in case and was only waiting for him to get there. "Sarah? What's happened?"

Sarah sat on the edge of the old sofa pushed up against one wall, staring blankly at the crucifix nailed to the wall, she knew behind it was a switch that swung the far wall open to reveal a large arsenal of weapons, most of which she had no idea how to hold let alone what they were named or did. She felt Father O'Malley sit in the velvet chair beside the couch, his expression concerned as he reached out a hand to cover her twitching hand. As she glanced down at their hands she realized she was pulling on the charms of her silver bracelet, it had become a nervous habit ever since she'd put it on. The charms calmed her, reminded her she was safe. Patrick had, had to explain what each charm meant and did; she'd brought it to him when it had shown up mysteriously with no note, no explanation on her doorstep a month after meeting Sam and Dean. Once he'd tested it, made sure it was safe, she'd put it on her wrist and never took it off. As if from a distance she heard him asking her again what had happened, and with a shake of her head she finally snapped back into the present with a deep breath. "It's time."

"Time for what, child?" Patrick shook his head a little not understanding. Sarah was always smiling or bright eyed over some new discovery she wanted to understand, this Sarah was almost lifeless.

"I'm not a child Patrick, please." A small spark of the old Sarah came through as her lips quirked in an almost amused smile before falling again. She took another settling breath as she kept her eyes on her bracelet. "You asked me a year and a half ago if, after my experience, I wanted to step into the hunting life. If by coming to you about it that's what I wanted, and I said at the time I didn't know. Well, now I do. It's time to stop kidding around thinking I'd be content with desk work for the rest of my life. I want to help people, I'm ready."

"Sarah, this isn't a decision you just, pick up and run with." Patrick sighed as he watched her, he'd never expected her to actually come to him for help with this, not sweet little Sarah who saw the good in practically every person she met. This life just wasn't for people like her.

"I didn't say right this second. I need to learn, I need to know what I'm doing what I'm facing, I don't want to go in blind-sided. And it isn't sudden or something I just up and decided. I need to do this." Sarah chewed on her lower lip for a moment sighing softly as she admitted almost shamefully, "I need to do it for them. I need to know that, their involvement in my life meant something. The world, the world is more frightening knowing they're gone, but maybe I can do my part. I want to know they didn't die for nothing. That he didn't die for nothing."

Patrick nodded slowly as he stood after a few moments of silence. He didn't have to ask who the 'they' or 'he' was she referred too, the Winchesters had made a lasting impact on Sarah, and no matter what persuasions he used, he'd never been able to measure the full depth of feelings she held for Sam to go away. As she'd often said, her feelings didn't go away, it simply shifted and changed, but no matter what form it took, it had changed the course of her life. He knew Sarah, she wouldn't let it go now that she'd started on that path, and in truth he wondered if she was always destined for this path, not that he wanted it for her. But, if she was serious, as he could tell she was, then he'd make sure she was watched out for, and of the hunters he knew he could only count on his son. "Let's find Ian then, it's time to get you acquainted with a gun."

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><p>It was her birthday, it was her birthday and she was spending it sitting in a motel room reading an autopsy report. Definitely not how she'd pictured her life going. She couldn't complain though, as she sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, the file open on the rickety crooked table her fingers toying with the silver locket on her throat, she knew she was doing the right thing. She was helping people, she was making a difference, and she was honoring the memories of people she'd cared for. If her mother had been alive, she knew she would have been proud. Hell, she probably would have packed up and joined her on her little 'adventure'. She glanced at her phone as it beeped at her, reaching out to pick it up her lips quirked a little seeing Ian's message saying he was headed back from his look around. Shaking her head she put her phone down again trying to focus.<p>

It was her birthday, and no one had said anything. True, she and Ian were on a case so well wishes weren't precisely on the ticket, and Father O'Malley had his hands full. Then there was her own father, she knew she wouldn't hear from him though, Daniel Blake didn't even remember he had a daughter most days, most of the time he mistook her for her mother. It had been barely a year after she learned about Sam and Dean dying, and started learning the hunting trade when the signs started. Daniel Blake had Alzheimer's. And now, just over four years later it had progressed so rapidly that she'd had to place him in a home for his own safety with Father O'Malley watching over him. She had no one else in her life, so she shouldn't have been surprised that no one wished her a happy birthday, or even acknowledged it, but it stung all the same. She'd just finished making her notes on the coroner's sheets when Ian came in with a cocky grin and a hand behind his back. With an exaggerated flourish the six foot three inch raven haired man held out his hand to present her with a single red icing'ed cupcake with a lonely candle sitting on top already lit and dripping wax. "It's your day of birth, and I think that means, you need to make a wish then eat this cupcake. Then we can go running to work it all off."

"Gee, you're so nice. Nothing I love more than running right after enjoying my birthday cupcake." Sarah snorted but despite the sarcasm she gave a smile as she picked the cupcake up out of his hand and after pausing for a minute, she blew out the candle with a little smile. She watched her friend curiously as she swiped a finger along the side of the cupcake licking the icing off of it, when Ian sat down by her looking at her notes she knew he had something to say and just wasn't getting too it. "What is it, O'Malley?"

Ian shook his head staring at the table for a minute, he wanted Sarah to enjoy this brief respite, he didn't know why he was apprehensive about telling her the news, she should be ecstatic, but he had a feeling that wasn't going to be the case. "Sarah, we got word on the Winchesters."

"O-Oh?" She felt her voice hitch just a little as her nerves spiked suddenly. True, they'd heard rumors over the last four years that the Winchesters were alive or dead accordingly, but no one ever seemed to know for sure. They'd somehow mastered being complete shadows and nothing more than a legend in the hunting world, and every time Sarah felt her heart clench and her nerves sky rocket. Every time she held out hope they were ok, but each time she had to face that it was all just useless rumors, and she wasn't sure which she preferred.

"Yeah." Ian nodded with a sigh before leaning back in his chair glancing at her over the top of the file he'd picked up in the guise of reading, "Dad got in touch with an old acquaintance, Bobby Singer. It took some finagling, but he finally got a straight answer. Sarah…the Winchesters are alive. But, Sam, apparently Sam's not quite himself…"

Sarah said nothing as she listened to Ian go over what he'd found out, there wasn't a lot of concrete details, but in the time he'd talked to his father Ian had been able to piece together the truths in some of the rumors they'd heard and come up with a pretty accurate picture: Sam wasn't Sam anymore. She stayed silent through the speech, nodding woodenly through parts but feeling herself grow colder the longer she listened. Towards the end she simply pushed up from the table, her uneaten birthday treat lying on its side on the table as she paced on shaky legs, her arms wrapped around her waist. What triggered him, she couldn't say, but without warning she felt her knees buckle as her body shook from the force of held back sobs, just as she fell, Ian caught her with an arm around her waist. She was so incapable of holding herself up she bent over his arm as she sank to the floor with him supporting her so she didn't truly fall and hurt herself. Her arms moved up to clutch the arm he put across her chest, she held onto him with clutching hands as sobs tore through her, shaking her entire body as she fought to hold them in.

"It's ok, it's ok, Daph, let it out I'm right here with you…" Ian said the words against her dark hair, tightening his arm around her front as she started rocking. He used her inside joke of a nickname in the hopes of getting her to relax. He didn't know why she was reacting so strongly, but he knew she needed to just let go. And so he sat with her on the floor, tears prickling the back of his eyes as he listened to her struggling to hold onto her composure, wrapping his free arm around her side to cover her hands with his where they clawed his arm. Then he did the only thing he could, held onto her while the damns broke and she fell away from sanity and let herself finally mourn the loss she'd been denying for so long.

Sarah shook her head forcefully as she tried to pull air into her lungs, she felt like she was choking, a suffocating pressure tight on her chest making it impossible to get her breathing under control. She refused to cry, not now, it was pointless to cry now, and that's what she kept telling herself at least. But there came a moment when her choked and broken struggles broke and the sobs tore through her chest, her entire body moved by the force of her despair. She'd held it all in for years, refusing, hoping, lying to herself that everything would fall into place, that life would be better.

Every little rumor and dead end, they'd slowly chipped away at her resolve, she'd cried only a little on the day she heard of the helicopter crash, because deep down she'd known a world without Sam, and Dean, in it wasn't her world. But hearing he was alive was somehow more earth shattering than if her fears had been proven true and if she was honest she'd admit this was her fear. Because now she knew, her Sam was still alive, but he would never be, and had never been, hers. And so she cried, cried the tears of someone who no longer had something worth living for. She cried the tears of a war survivor unable to tell if they were happy to be alive or despondent to have lost everyone and everything they cared for. Sarah cried until she literally passed out in the arms of her friend from utter exhaustion, only to wake up from a nightmarish hell where she saw Sam's face, heard his voice, and upon waking to know she'd never have that again, began crying again, but more softly this time.

During the brief time when Sarah had exhausted herself into passing out Ian managed to move her to the couch and grab a wet rag, pulling her back to his side as he sat on the couch in the same position they'd been in when her emotional panic attack hit. He rocked her gently as she woke with a start and started sniffling and crying quietly, using the rag to soothe her red and irritated eyes he shifted them so she sat more on his lap where she could lean back and press her face against his shirt. They'd been friends since childhood, Sarah was as close to a little sister as Ian could get, and seeing her so broken was frightening. And so he did the only thing he could, hold her until she'd calmed down. "I thought you might be happy to know he was ok…"

Sarah sniffled heavily, wrapping her arms around his waist as she shook her head, "I'm happy he is safe, but…it's really over now. I can't keep pretending he'll come back to me, can't keep pretending we had anything. I loved him, I love him so much."

Ian wrapped his arms more securely around her, resting his cheek against her dark brunette hair, "You don't know that it's over. The Sarah I knew wouldn't just give up on something."

"The Sarah you knew was an idealistic and romantic idiot who's been in need of a wake-up call for too long now. It's time to stop dreaming and deluding myself into thinking its reality." Her voice was so serious in its quiet quality that for the briefest moment Ian was stunned into silence. It was so unlike Sarah to just give up on something, especially someone, and hearing the conviction of her voice he couldn't help wondering how long it would take to put her back together again.

"You shouldn't think like that remember, 'Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss'" The words were whispered softly as he eased some of her hair from out of her face and behind one ear, holding her close to his chest as the worst of her tears began to subside.

"Unfortunately for Alexander Dumas, he forgot one very important thing…" Her words were broken and dejected, but there was a hollow quality to them. The voice of someone whose lost all hope and has accepted that life will remain empty, the voice of someone who has come to terms with the pain of never knowing true heart wrenching, soul fulfilling love again. "That some things, once broken, can never be repaired again no matter how hard we try. Some cracks can't be filled, and once put back together; it loses its original beauty. It will always be broken, and disfigured. Dumas didn't realize the truth; there are some heart aches that leave a heart only as a shell of its former glory. Ultimate bliss is unattainable, and we're kidding ourselves if we think otherwise."

Ian sighed heavily shaking his head, "You always did turn that English class into a philosophy course."

"That's because it was a philosophy of English lit, genius." Sarah mumbled slightly, she knew he was trying to get her to smile, but right now she simply couldn't. It had been six years. Six years of silent hoping, of deluding herself into thinking that she loved a man who would never even remember her name. She didn't claim to be brilliant by any standards, but this had to be one of her most profoundly idiotic instances of her life. She'd left herself so messed up she hadn't been able to see the truth, to Sam she'd merely been another stop, another story. For her there's would always be an unrequited love, she'd forever be Juliet wishing she'd been good enough for Romeo to love, but knowing she'd never deserved it or him deep down. Shaking her head a little she closed her eyes leaning against her friend, unable to cry anymore tears she simply slipped into blessed black oblivion knowing that at least in sleep she couldn't feel pain. Her last lucid thought as she succumbed to exhaustion was that some people, simply weren't meant for a happily ever after, no matter how hard they tried.


End file.
